Adobe Firefly at MAX: third-party AI models, custom brand AI, and threading the Hollywood needle
Oct 29, 2025 with Anil Chakravarthy
Key Points
- Adobe announces partnerships with Google, Runway, and Luma to position Firefly as a model-agnostic platform rather than a proprietary AI system, signaling a shift toward multi-model creative infrastructure.
- Adobe targets enterprise clients like Disney and Home Depot with custom brand AI models designed to lock in identity and protect IP, positioning Firefly as essential for compliance-sensitive studios.
- Adobe embeds itself into AI-native interfaces by integrating Adobe Express into ChatGPT, treating AI as a new operating system layer and itself as the application platform running atop it.
Summary
Adobe used its MAX conference in Los Angeles — drawing more than 10,000 attendees — to position Firefly as the center of a multi-model creative platform rather than a single proprietary AI play. The company announced a partnership with Google integrating Veo and Imagen into its tools, alongside third-party models from Runway, Luma, and others. The strategic framing is explicit: Adobe calls it 'Firefly models, partner models, your models,' signaling that the platform is designed to be model-agnostic.
The enterprise pitch centers on custom brand AI. Adobe is targeting large clients — citing Disney, Home Depot, and Newell Brands by name — with the ability to build proprietary models that lock in brand identity and protect IP. This 'brand brain' positioning is Adobe's attempt to make Firefly indispensable at the top of the market, where compliance, IP protection, and monetization concerns dominate the GenAI conversation.
Aneel Chakravarthy, Adobe's representative at MAX, frames AI not as a disruptive threat to the existing product suite but as the latest in a sequence of platform shifts Adobe has navigated — from desktop OS to cloud to mobile. The argument is that AI is the new operating system layer, and Adobe is the application platform running on top of it. As evidence, Adobe demonstrated Adobe Express working within ChatGPT, suggesting the company is actively embedding itself into AI-native interfaces rather than waiting to be bypassed by them.
The Hollywood dynamic is a live tension. Studios are genuinely interested in AI for ideation, production, and fan engagement — including creating content variations at scale — but are moving carefully to avoid IP conflicts, labor friction, and reputational risk. Chakravarthy describes the posture as 'threading the needle,' with quality, rights protection, and recurring revenue viability as the three conditions studios need satisfied before committing.
More than half of MAX attendees are first-timers, according to Chakravarthy, a signal that Adobe's audience is expanding beyond its traditional power-user base. The mobile-first segment of that new cohort wants AI capabilities without the complexity of a desktop workflow — a growth surface that sits well below the enterprise tier but feeds the long-term funnel.